“Though I’m tied to a crusty old woman,
Much given to scolding and jealousy,
I know that the case is too common,
And so I will ogle each girl I see.
Toi de roi, loi, &c.
“Come, my lads!” he resumed, “sit you down, and clap half a yard of
clay into your mouths.” The two worthy artisans looked at each other
significantly, or rather insignificantly, for they knew not what to
think, and did as they were bid. “Come, why don’t you talk?” said the
teetotum parson landlord, after a short silence. “You’re as dull as a
couple of tom cats with their ears cut off--talk, man, talk--there’s no
doing nothing without talking.” This last part of his speech seemed
more particularly addressed to Peter Brown, who, albeit a man of a sound
head, and well skilled in such matters as appertained unto iron and the
coal trade, had not been much in the habit of mixing with the clergy;
therefore he felt, for a moment, as he said, “nonplushed;” but
fortunately he recollected the Catholic question, about which most
people were then talking, and which every body professed to understand.
Therefore, he forthwith introduced the subject; and being well aware of
the parson’s bias, and having, moreover, been told that he had written
a pamphlet; therefore (though to do Peter Brown justice, he was not
accustomed to read such publications) he scrupled not to give his
opinion very freely, and concluded by taking up his pint and drinking a
very unchristian-like malediction against the Pope. George Syms followed
on the same side, and concluded in the same manner, adding thereunto,
“Your good healths, gemmen.”--“What a pack of nonsense!” exclaimed the
parson, “I should like to know what harm the Pope can do us! I tell you
what, my lads, it’s all my eye and Betty Martin. Live and let live,
I say. So long as I can get a good living, I don’t care the toss of a
halfpenny who’s uppermost. The Pope’s an old woman, and so are they that
are afraid of him.” The elderly stranger here seemed highly delighted,
and cried, “Bravo!” and clapped the speaker on the back, and said,
“That’s your sort! Go it, my hearty!” But Peter Brown took the liberty
of telling the parson, in a very unceremonious way, that he seemed to
have changed his opinions very suddenly. “Not I,” said the other; “I was
always of the same way of thinking.”--“Then words have no meaning,”
observed George Syms, angrily, “for I heard you myself. You talked as
loud about the wickedness of ‘mancipation as ever I heard a man in my
life, no longer ago than last Sunday.”--“Then I must have been
drunk--that’s all I can say about the business,” replied the other,
coolly; and he began to fill his pipe with the utmost nonchalance, as
though it was a matter of course. Such apparently scandalous conduct
was, however, too much for the unsophisticated George Syms and Peter
Brown, who simultaneously threw down their reckoning, and, much to their
credit, left the turncoat reprobate parson to the company of the elderly
gentleman.
If we were to relate half the whimsical consequences of the teetotum
tricks of this strange personage, we might fill volumes; but as it is
not our intention to allow the detail to swell even into one, we must
hastily sketch the proceedings of poor Jacob Philpot, after he left the
Red Lion to dine with sundry of the gentry and clergy of the Old
Boar, in his new capacity of an ecclesiastic, in the outward form of a
somewhat negligently dressed landlord. He was accosted on the road by
divers of his coal-carrying neighbours with a degree of familiarity
which was exceedingly mortifying to his feelings. One told him to
be home in time to take part of a gallon of ale that he had won of
neighbour Smith; a second reminded him that to-morrow was club-night at
the Nag’s Head; and a third asked him where he had stolen his horse. At
length he arrived, much out of humour, at the Old Boar, an inn of a very
different description from the Red Lion, being a posting house of
no inconsiderable magnitude, wherein that day was to be holden the
symposium of certain grandees of the adjacent country, as before hinted.
The landlord, who happened to be standing at the door, was somewhat
surprised at the formal manner with which Jacob Philpot greeted him, and
gave his horse into the charge of the hostler; but, as he knew him only
by sight, and had many things to attend to, he went his way without
making any remark, and thus, unwittingly, increased the irritation of
Jacob’s new teetotum sensitive feelings. “Are any of the gentlemen come
yet?” asked Jacob, haughtily, of one of the waiters.--“What gentlemen?”
quoth the waiter. “Any of them,” said Jacob, “Mr. Wiggins, Doctor White,
or Captain Pole?” At this moment a carriage drove up to the door, and
the bells all began ringing, and the waiters rah to see who had arrived,
and Jacob Philpot was left unheeded.--“This is very strange conduct!”
observed he; “I never met with such incivility in my life! One would
think I was a dog!” Jacob walked into the open air to cool himself, and
strolled round the garden of the inn, till the calls of hunger forced
him to return to the house, where the odour of delicate viands was quite
provoking; so he followed the guidance of his nose, and arrived in
the large dining-room, where he found, to his great surprise and
mortification, that the company were assembled, and the work of
destruction had been going on for some time, as the second course had
just been placed on the table. Jacob felt that the neglect with which
he had been treated was “enough to make a parson swear;” and perhaps he
would have sworn, but that he had no time to spare and, therefore, as
all the seats at the upper end of the table were engaged, he deposited
himself on a vacant chair about the centre, between two gentlemen with
whom he had no acquaintance, and, spreading his napkin on his lap,
demanded of a waiter what fish had gone out. The man replied only by a
stare and a smile, a line of conduct which was by no means surprising,
seeing that the most stylish part of Philpot’s dress was, without
dispute, the napkin aforesaid. “What’s the fellow gaping at?” cried
Jacob, in an angry voice; “go and tell your master I want to speak
to him directly. I don’t understand such treatment. Tell him to come
immediately! Do you hear?” The loud tone in which this was spoken
aroused the attention of the company; and most of them cast a look of
inquiry, first at the speaker, and then round at the table, as if to
discern by whom the strange gentleman in the scarlet and yellow plush
waistcoat and the dirty shirt might be patronized but there were others
who recognized the landlord of the Red Lion at Stockwell. The
whole, however, were somewhat startled when he addressed them as
follows:--“Really, gentlemen, I must say, that a joke may be carried too
far; and, if it was not for my cloth (here he handled the napkin),
I declare I don’t know how I might act. Mr. Chairman, we have known each
other now for a good many years, and you must be convinced that I can
take a joke as well as any man; but human nature can endure this no
longer. Mr. Wiggins! Captain Pole! my good friend Doctor White! I appeal
to you.” Here the gentlemen named looked especially astounded. “What!
can it be possible that you have _all_ agreed to cut me! Oh, no! I will
not believe that political differences of opinion can run _quite_ so
high. Come--let us have no more of this nonsense!”--No, no, we’ve had
quite enough of it,” said the landlord of the Old Boar, pulling the
chair from beneath the last speaker, who was consequently obliged again
to be upon his legs, while there came, from various parts of the table,
cries of “Chair! chair! Turn him out!”--“Man!” roared the teetotum
par-soned landlord of the Red Lion, to the landlord of the Old Boar,
“Man! you shall repent of this! If it wasn’t for my cloth, I’d soon-”--
“Come, give me the cloth!” said the other, snatching away the napkin,
which Jacob had buttoned in his waistcoat, and thereby causing that
garment to fly open and expose more of dirty linen and skin than is
usually sported at a dinner party. Poor Philpot’s rage had now reached
its acme, and he again appealed to the chairman by name. “Colonel
Martain!” said he, “can you sit by and see me used thus? I am sure that
you will not pretend that you don’t know me!”--“Not I,” replied the
chairman; I know you well enough, and a confounded impudent fellow you
are. I’ll tell you what, my lad, next time you apply for a license, you
shall hear of this.” The landlord of the Old Boar was, withal, a
kind-hearted man; and, as he knew that the loss of its license would be
ruin to the rampant Red Lion and all concerned therewith, he was
determined that poor Philpot should be saved from destruction in spite
of his teeth; therefore, without further ceremony, he, being a muscular
man, laid violent hands upon the said Jacob, and, with the assistance of
his waiters conveyed him out of the room, in despite of much struggling,
and sundry interjections concerning his “cloth.” When they had deposited
him safely in an armchair in “the bar,” the landlady, who had frequently
seen him before, in his proper character, that of a civil man, who “knew
his place” in society, very kindly offered him a cup of tea; and the
landlord asked how he could think of making such a fool of himself; and
the waiter, whom he had accosted on first entering the house, vouched
for his not having had any thing to eat or drink; whereupon they spoke
of the remains of a turbot, which had just come down stairs, and a
haunch of venison that was to follow. It is a sad thing to have a mind
and body that are no match for each other. Jacob’s outward man would
have been highly gratified at the exhibition of these things; but the
spirit of the parson was too mighty within, and spurned every offer, and
the body was compelled to obey. So the horse that was borrowed of the
squire was ordered out, and Jacob Philpot mounted and rode on his way in
excessive irritation, growling vehemently at the insult and indignity
which had been committed against the “cloth” in general, and his own
person in particular.
“The sun sunk beneath the horizon,” as novelists say, when Jacob Philpot
entered the village of Stockwell, and, as if waking from a dream, he
suddenly started, and was much surprised to find himself on horseback,
for the last thing that he recollected was going up stairs at his own
house, and composing himself for a nap, that he might be ready to join
neighbour Scroggins and Dick Smith, when they came in the evening to
drink the gallon of ale lost by the latter. “And, my eyes!” said he, “if
I haven’t got the squire’s horse that the parson borrowed this morning.
Well--it’s very odd! however, the ride has done me a deal of good, for I
feel as if I hadn’t any thing all day, and yet I did pretty well too at
the leg of mutton at dinner.” Mrs. Philpot received her lord and nominal
master in no very gracious mood, and said she should like to know where
he had been riding. “That’s more than I can tell you,” replied Jacob;
“however, I know I’m as hungry as a greyhound, though I never made a
better dinner in my life.”--“More shame for you,” said Mrs. Philpot; “I
wish the Old Boar was a thousand miles off.”--“What’s the woman talking
about?” quoth Jacob. “Eh! what! at it again, I suppose,” and he pointed
to the closet containing the rum bottle. “Hush!” cried Mrs. Philpot,
“here’s the parson coming down stairs!”--“The parson!” exclaimed Jacob;
what’s he been doing up stairs, I should like to know?”--“He has been to
take a nap on mistress’s bed,” said Sally.--“The dickens he has! This is
a pretty story,” quoth Jacob. “How could I help it?” asked Mrs. Philpot;
“you should stay at home and look after your own business, and not go
ramshackling about the country. You shan’t hear the last of the Old Boar
just yet I promise you.” To avoid the threatened storm, and satisfy the
calls of hunger, Jacob made off to the larder, and commenced an attack
upon the leg of mutton.
At this moment the Reverend Mr. Stanhope opened the little door at
the foot of the stairs--On waking, and finding himself upon a bed, he
concluded that he must have fainted in consequence of the agitation of
mind produced by the gross insults which he had suffered, or perhaps
from the effects of hunger. Great, therefore, was his surprise to find
himself at the Red Lion in his own parish; and the first questions he
asked of Mrs. Philpot were, how and when he had been brought there. “La,
Sir!” said the landlady, “you went up stairs of your own accord, after
you were tired of smoking under the tree.”--“Smoking under the tree,
woman!” exclaimed Mr. Stanhope; “what are you talking about? Do you
recollect whom you are speaking to?”--“Ay, marry, do I,” replied the
sensitive Mrs. Philpot; “and you told Sally to call you when Scroggins
and Smith came for their gallon of ale, as you meant to join their
party.”
The Reverend Mr. Stanhope straightway took up his hat, put it upon his
head, and stalked with indignant dignity out of the house, opining that
the poor woman was in her cups; and meditated as he walked home, on the
extraordinary affairs of the day. But his troubles were not yet
ended, for the report of his public jollification had reached his own
household; and John, his trusty man-servant, had been dispatched to the
Red Lion, and had ascertained that his master was really gone to bed
in a state very unfit for a clergyman to be seen in. Some remarkably
good-natured friends had been to condole with Mrs. Stanhope upon the
extraordinary proceedings of her good man, and to say how much they were
shocked, and what a pity it was, and wondering what the bishop
would think of it, and divers other equally amiable and consolatory
reflections and notes of admiration.--Now Mrs. Stanhope, though she had
much of the “milk of human kindness” in her composition, had, withal, a
sufficient portion of “tartaric acid” mingled therewith. Therefore, when
her beer-drinking husband made his appearance, he found her in a state
of effervescence. “Mary,” said he “I am extremely fatigued. I have been
exposed to-day to a series of insults, such as I could not have imagined
it possible for any one to offer me.”
“Nor any body else,” replied Mrs. Stanhope; “but you are rightly served,
and I am glad of it. Who could have supposed that you, the minister of a
parish?--Faugh! how filthily you smell of tobacco! I vow I cannot
endure to be in the room with you!” and she arose and left the divine to
himself, in exceeding great perplexity. However, being a man who loved
to do all things in order, he remembered that he had not dined, so he
rang the bell and gave the needful instructions, thinking it best to
satisfy nature first, and _then_ endeavour to ascertain the cause of his
beloved Mary’s acidity. His appetite was gone but that he attributed to
having fasted too long, a practice very unusual with him; however, he
picked a bit here and there, and then indulged himself with a bottle
of his oldest port, which he had about half consumed, and somewhat
recovered his spirits, ere his dear Mary made her re-appearance, and
told him that she was perfectly astonished at his conduct.--And well
might she say so, for _now_ the wine, which he had been drinking with
unusual rapidity, thinking, good easy man, that he had taken nothing all
day, began to have a very visible effect upon a body already saturated
with strong ale. He declared that he cared not a fig for the good
opinion of any gentleman in the county; that he would always act and
speak according to his principles, and filled a bumper to the health of
the Lord Chancellor, and drank sundry more exceedingly loyal toasts; and
told his astonished spouse, that he should not be surprised if he was
very soon to be made a dean or a bishop; and as for the people at the
Old Boar, he saw through their conduct--it was all envy, which doth
“merit as its shade pursue.” The good lady justly deemed it folly to
waste her oratory upon a man in such a state, and reserved her powers
for the next morning; and Mr. Stanhope reeled to bed that night in a
condition which to do him justice, he had never before exhibited under
his own roof.
The next morning, Mrs. Stanhope and her daughter Sophy, a promising
young lady about ten years old, of the hoyden class, were at breakfast,
when the elderly stranger called at the rectory, and expressed great
concern on being told that Mr. S. was somewhat indisposed, and had not
yet made his appearance. He said that his business was of very little
importance, and merely concerned some geological inquiries, which he was
prosecuting in the vicinity; but Mrs. Stanhope, who had the names of all
the ologies by heart, and loved occasionally to talk thereof, persuaded
him to wait a short time, little dreaming of the consequence; for the
wily old gentleman began to romp with Miss Sophy, and, after a while,
produced his teetotum, and, in short, so contrived it, that the mother
and daughter played together therewith for five minutes. He then
politely took his leave, promising to call again; and Mrs. Stanhope
bobbed him a curtsey, and Sophia assured him that Mr. S. would be
extremely happy to afford him every assistance in his scientific
researches. When the worthy divine at length made his appearance in the
breakfast parlour, strangely puzzled as to the extreme feverishness
and langour which oppressed him, he found Sophy sitting gravely in an
arm-chair, reading a treatise on craniology. It was a pleasant thing
for him to see her read any thing; but he could not help expressing his
surprise, by observing, “I should think that book a little above your
comprehension, my dear.”--“Indeed! Sir,” was the reply; and the
little girl laid down the volume, and sat erect in her chair, and thus
continued:--“I should think, Mr. Nicodemus Stanhope, that after the
specimen of good sense and propriety of conduct which you were pleased
to exhibit yesterday, it scarcely becomes _you_ to pretend to estimate
the _comprehension_ of others.”--“My dear,” said the astonished divine,
“this is very strange language! You forget whom you are speaking
to!”--“Not at all,” replied the child. “I know _my_ place, if you don’t
know yours, and am determined to speak my mind.” If anything could add
to the Reverend Mr. Nicodemus Stanhope’s surprise, it was the sound of
his wife’s voice in the garden, calling to his man John to stand out of
the way, or she should run over him. Poor John, who was tying up some of
her favourite flowers, got out of her way accordingly in quick time, and
the next moment his mistress rushed by, trundling a hoop, hallooing and
laughing, and highly enjoying his apparent dismay. Throughout that day,
it may be imagined that the reverend gentleman’s philosophy was sorely
tried; and we are compelled, by want of room, to leave the particulars
of his botheration to the reader’s imagination.
We are sorry to say that these were not the only metamorphoses which the
mischievous old gentleman wrought in the village of Stockwell.
There was a game of teetotum played between a sergeant of dragoons,
who had retired upon his well-earned pension, and a baker, who happened
likewise to be the renter of a small patch of land adjoining the
village. The veteran, with that indistinctness of character before
mentioned, shouldered the peel, * and took it to the field, and used it
for loading and spreading manure, so that it was never afterwards fit
for any but dirty work. Then, just to show that he was not afraid of any
body, he cut a gap in the hedge of a small field of wheat which had just
been reaped, and was standing in sheaves, and thereby gave admittance
to a neighbouring bull, who amused himself greatly by tossing the said
sheaves; but more particularly those which were set apart as tythes,
against which he appeared to have a particular spite, throwing them high
into the air, and then bellowing and treading them under foot. But--we
must come to a close. Suffice it to say, that the village of Stockwell
was long in a state of confusion in consequence of these games; for the
mischief which was done during the period of delusion, ended not, like
the delusion itself, with the rising or setting of the sun.
* “Peel--A broad, thin board, with a longhandle, used by
bakers to put their bread in and out of the oven.”--Johnson.
Having now related as many particulars of these strange occurrences as
our limits will permit, we have merely to state the effects which they
produced upon ourselves. Whenever we have since beheld servants aping
the conduct of their masters or mistresses, tradesmen wasting their
time and money at taverns, clergymen forgetful of the dignity and sacred
character of their profession, publicans imagining themselves fit for
preachers, children calling their parents to account for their conduct,
matrons acting the hoyden, and other incongruities--whenever we witness
these and the like occurrences, we conclude that the actors therein have
been playing a game with the Old Gentleman’s Teetotum.
[ABRIDGED FROM BLACKWOOD.]
[Illustration: 168]